A Trip to Bac Ninh

I just returned from a visit to Bac Ninh, a province near Hanoi. It is the hometown of the Dean of my department. He invited me to go with him to see his house and enjoy the fresh air of the countryside. He conveniently asked a man with a car (very few people own cars here) to come with us…and meet the “available” American teacher. I had the longest, most awkward time of my life. Since the Dean needed to take care of “family business,” he had this guy show me some of the sites of Bac Ninh. With his broken English, he tried to point out some different sites in addition to confessing his undying love for me. He kept buying me little gifts, trying to hold my hand, and asking what he must do to be my boyfriend. Awkward! I didn’t tell him that he needed to grow about a foot taller, learn English, and tweeze his fountain-o-sprout facial hairs that grew from his chin and neck. You gotta give it to the guy for having the courage, but when I was the last person to be dropped off (the lone drive from the Dean’s house to mine was supposed to take 20 minutes but took an hour because he stopped different places to buy me flowers and take his sweet time because “he didn’t want the time to end”), I wasn’t his biggest fan.

Though the creepy guy was not so fun, Bac Ninh was wonderful to visit. The pictures are from the temple of the Ly Dynasty and then a picture with the Dean.

The Power of Gesture

In my classes, I require the students to give professional business presentations, in which they must include a visual aid. Last Wednesday, a student was presenting and after a comment made by a classmate, he decided to respond by using, what he thought was a universal gesture for you’re lying, and flipped him off. There are days when I feel like I’m not really getting through to my students. I guess I can feel confident that the students who complete my course can use effective visual aids.

I was driving my motorbike with Ngan, my Vietnamese friend, and as I began to turn into the parking lot for the restaurant that we were going to, they pointed me to the other side of the road because there was no room. In the midst of traffic, I had to abandon my first thought to turn left, stop, and move to the right. Well, I obviously ticked off some guy behind me and all I heard was something, something, “Tay” (which is the word for Westerner). He stuck his fist in the air at me. However, it made me laugh because though he was trying to gesture that he was mad and would like to punch me for my bad driving skills, he had his thumb sticking up, which to me communicated, “Yeah, thumbs up, you’re okay!” I was able to assure Ngan that was what he really meant.

St. Patrick's Day

Our band performed at an Irish Pub for St. Patty's Day and though I was sick with a cold and we had some technical problems, it turned out to be okay. The place was packed with tourists, so few were there to actually see the band but were just out celebrating. However, fun was had by all. I was able to break it down with my egg shaker...so what else could the night require?

Yankee

It seems that as of recent I continue to run into Australians wherever I go. I find myself in situations where I’m the only American in a crowd of Aussies. No complaints, though, as everyone I have met thus far have been great and a lot of fun. Maybe it is just preparing me for studying there, if I decide to go that route. On a train from Bangkok to Chiang Mai, half of my section on the train consisted of Aussies. I became endearingly known as their “Little Yankee Friend.” I joined a group of middle-aged men for a beer in the dinning car because they wouldn’t take no for an answer…and though I don’t really like the taste of beer, I decided to be a trooper and down one for the boys. One of the men had lived in Southern Vietnam as a project manager for an engineering company. We shared our woes mixed with our fascination with Vietnam.

Later when I went back to my compartment, next to me was a guy who had a strange mixture of an American and Australian accent. He would say, “I reckon” and talk about what he did after “uni” (college). His story is rather interesting. He is from Boston but immigrated to Australia a couple years ago and now is a tomato farmer in a rural area in Northern Australia. I was intrigued how a guy from Boston ended up in Australia as a tomato farmer and so he kept me entertained by his story for a good hour. I’ve told him that I’d come and pick some tomatoes for him if I ever make it to Australia. It is not everyday that you meet an Australian tomato farmer from Boston.